DNS is a complicated, security-sensitive protocol. In August 2014, Lennart Poettering declared that "systemd-resolved is now a pretty complete caching DNS and LLMNR stub resolver." In reality, systemd-resolved failed to implement any of the documented best practices to protect against DNS cache poisoning. It was vulnerable to Dan Kaminsky's cache poisoning attack which was fixed in every other DNS server during a massive coordinated response in 2008 (and which had been fixed in djbdns in 1999). Although systemd doesn't force you to use systemd-resolved, it exposes a non-standard interface over DBUS which they encourage applications to use instead of the standard DNS protocol over port 53. If applications follow this recommendation, it will become impossible to replace systemd-resolved with a more secure DNS resolver, unless that DNS resolver opts to emulate systemd's non-standard DBUS API.

__________________The world doesn't live off jam and fancy perfumes - it lives off bread and meat and potatoes. Nothing changes. All the big fancy stuff is sloppy stuff that crashes. I don't need dancing baloney - I need stuff that works. -- Theo de Raadt

Many Linux people simply have their heads in the sand with regards to systemd and it's pretty much "bandwagon fallacy" all over again, where systemd fans are sneering at anyone who doesn't want systemd and treating the widespread adoption of shit code as "inevitable". This really proves that systemd fans aren't so different from the average windows user, who many in turn look down upon.

It seems to me that some are so heavily invested in this crap that they can't easily back out and just want others to just shut up and put up and do the same, so that they can feel more at ease with their choice.

The old "you don't have to use this bit or that bit" excuses from the apologists are wearing a bit thin.

Practically, saying code it yourself, or use something else no longer applies. RedHat is kind of the Microsoft of the Linux world and Poettering is their employee. Though various niche distributions won't use it, it's become almost impossible to avoid, at least when using Linux commercially, especially after Debian and Ubuntu went over, to avoid. Yes, you could use Slack, or Gentoo, or a few others, but generally, in the US at least, people are going to expect RedHat/CentOS and/or Debian/Ubuntu.

... but it is now there, and rather than railing against it, one just has to be on their guard to avoid its pitfalls.

There is another option. Linux users can accept the bad fact and be on guard or they can stop using Linux. But you are correct in your sentiment. The time for complaining ended a few years ago. Continuing to use the system and complaining about it makes no sense. Either use it or do not.

There is another option. Linux users can accept the bad fact and be on guard or they can stop using Linux. But you are correct in your sentiment. The time for complaining ended a few years ago. Continuing to use the system and complaining about it makes no sense. Either use it or do not.

I run Slackware when I run Linux, and I run OpenBSD on two laptops. Both operating systems are systemd free.

If you're just running Linux at home, then you can use one of the variants. If using it at work, at least in the US, the most common thing to see is CentOS. A lot of people stayed on CentOS-6 to avoid systemd, but it's getting somewhat long in the tooth. We have some CentOS-7.x machines and so far, they're not horrible. Heh, just realized that I'm writing this from a CentOS-7 machine, but this is a home workstation-cum-server where I'm not that concerned.

Good question. Systemd is not in Slackware-current yet, so I think there is a better than average chance that the next stable release of Slackware will not have systemd. Therefore, Slackware will continue to be systemd free for the next 1-2 years.

Problem with replacing systemd is it exposes and encourages to use its non-standard interfaces. Software can be written to be systemd-dependend. Large part of FOSS community idea is to not only write, share and use freely licensed software (code), but also use openly standardized protocols (e.g. HTTP, XMPP), file formats (e.g. Open Document Format) and programming interfaces. It seems like systemd has only freely licensed code, but does not bother to meet other requirements of FOSS.

__________________
Signature: Furthermore, I consider that systemd must be destroyed.
Based on Latin oratorical phrase

Good question. Systemd is not in Slackware-current yet, so I think there is a better than average chance that the next stable release of Slackware will not have systemd. Therefore, Slackware will continue to be systemd free for the next 1-2 years.

Yup. In fact Slackware 13.0 was released in 2009 and is still receiving patches. So the next release of Slackware (14.3 ?, 15.0 ?, 14.37 ?? ) could be expected to be supported for 7+ years. Of course, as scottro pointed out, such a system could become "long in the tooth" depending on the requirements.

Probably there's a positive side to this too. 7 years is a long time in computing. Lots can and will change. systemd could well be dead as a doornail by then, killed by its own demerits. Whatever good ideas it may have could be implemented differently. We'll probably all be worried about something else by then.